TOPIC INFO (CUET PG)
TOPIC INFO – CUET PG (Geography)
SUB-TOPIC INFO – Population Geography
CONTENT TYPE – Detailed Notes
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1. Racial Groups and Culture
1.1. Concept and Basis of Racial Classification
1.2. Major Racial Divisions and Their Distribution
1.3. Racial Classification of India (B.S. Guha’s Scheme)
1.4. Culture: Concept, Systems, and Characteristics
1.5. Relationship Between Race and Culture
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Division of Mankind: Racial Groups
CUET PG GEOGRAPHY
Population Geography
Racial Groups and Culture
Race is a concept used in physical anthropology to classify human populations on the basis of shared, biologically transmitted physical characteristics such as skin colour, hair form and colour, head shape, nasal index, stature, and blood groups. It must be distinguished from culture, ethnicity, and nationality, which are based on learned social behaviour, language, religion, and shared history rather than biological inheritance. The scientific study of racial classification falls under physical/biological anthropology, while the study of culture falls under social/cultural anthropology.
Concept and Basis of Racial Classification
Anthropologists have historically classified races using both morphological (somatic) characteristics and, more recently, genetic/serological markers. Morphological criteria include the cephalic index (ratio of head breadth to head length, classifying skulls as dolichocephalic, mesocephalic, or brachycephalic), nasal index, skin colour (based on Von Luschan’s chromatic scale), hair texture and colour (straight, wavy, curly, woolly), stature, eye colour and form, and prognathism (jaw protrusion). Modern classification also uses blood group distribution (ABO system), fingerprint patterns (dermatoglyphics), and genetic markers such as the presence of the sickle-cell trait or lactose tolerance genes.
Early racial classification schemes include those of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1795), who proposed five races — Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malayan; Georges Cuvier’s threefold division into Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negroid; and Carleton Coon’s later classification. However, the concept of “pure race” has been largely rejected by contemporary anthropology because human populations show continuous variation (clinal distribution) rather than discrete boundaries, and genetic studies (such as those associated with Richard Lewontin) have demonstrated that the greatest genetic variation exists within so-called racial groups rather than between them.